Broken Fairytale
by Secret Starr
Summary: 'I don't usually touch people, but right now, I need to crush her to me. I need her to know I'm here. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I need to know she's here.' Ichigo/Rukia, IchiRuki, Alternate Universe, AU


Wow, should be working on _Games_, but this came to mind, so I had to write it. Warning: Probably lots of spelling errors, but its 8:17 in the morning and I have had NO sleep. Please forgive it all the grammar and spelling errors and don't point them out.

ICHIGOxRUKIA! Kind of anti-ByakuyaXHisana, give it a chance, realize that I'm a Byakuya and ByakuyaXRukia fan as well.

**Read or Confusion Might Ensue:** Most of Rukia's point of view is from the past, most (if not all, can't remember currently…) Of Ichigo's point of view is from the present… Point of view is changed by the _–Ichigo—_and _–Rukia—_and such.

_Disclaimer:_ I don't own Bleach. Deal with it.

* * *

_How can you sleep when his lips I've kissed, and felt his touch,_

_And too whispered those words that meant so much?_

**B**R**O**K**E**N **F**A**I**R**Y**T**A**L**E**

* * *

_-Ichigo-_

"Why so heavy with the eyeliner?"

Rukia glares up at me, even though she knows I was joking, a look I've been getting used to.

I sigh, shove my hands in my pockets, and keep my stride matching hers.

Rukia's been doing the eyeliner-hard-core-girl-thing since I've met her. Renji told me once that she didn't always do it, even showed me a picture. I remember scrunching my nose and taking a closer look at the small picture on his phone. She looked different… I don't know if "better "is the right word. It was her same old amazing violet eyes; it was just different seeing her without black incasing them.

But today, it's heavier. Thicker, on the top even. Usually, it's just the line around the bottom, an emo look… but for today, it's even on her lids, almost to her eyebrows.

She glared ahead, and we continue walking to our destined classes. It's quiet between us as the school hall buzzes around us. Students smiling, laughing, making jokes and cat calls. Between us, it's silent, heavy, and distant.

I shrug it off. After all, it doesn't matter. Distant? It's just a phase. By lunch, she'll be smiling, or at least faking it.

But maybe, this time, she'll tell me what's upset her so much.

-_Rukia_—

She was the unknown freshman. He was the popular senior.

Nervous and anxious for high school, the senior boy actually took sympathy on her at first. He was the one to spot her small, but growing acting talent, her amazing eye for good art (even if it wasn't her own terrible drawings) and her brilliance in Japanese literature.

She was able to bring out his rare smiles, compliment his sculptures (in which he would actually thank her instead of reject her praise) and once, she made him laugh.

When she asked her sister about him, also a senior in his class, she laughed.

"_Him?_" She questions between giggles, finally settling enough to look at her sister seriously. "You can have him!"

If only Hisana hadn't wanted him too…

_-Ichigo—_

He's right.

By lunch, she's laughing… or at least putting on that smile that only the grim reaper can use to fool his death row victims.

The smile that everyone saw as her enjoying herself, laughing at the jokes, smiling at the small squabbles, and adding into the conversation.

The same smile he read as her faking her laughter, her smile, her comments…to not have to explain what was truly bothering her.

_-Rukia_—

She should have suspected something when he started to ask Hisana to join them for group dates.

She should have seen the signs of flirtation when they would smile at each other when they thought she wasn't looking.

She should have realized she was fighting a losing battle when they would hug good bye and he wouldn't even look at her when they bid farewell.

Why was her fairytale love falling between her fingers?

It started out that way, as a fairytale… but what was happening to it now?

They used to kiss in the halls without shame.

They used to hold hands and cuddle when even Hisana and the principle where around.

They used to ask for the hall pass to get out of their classes for a quick meet up by the vending machines.

But all of the above had one common tie… the word _used_.

Now, it was a pat on the head in the halls.

A brush of hands when around Hisana.

And the one lonely text snuck into class.

The smiles where now for Hisana, when she would compliment and add criticism to his sculptures. Now it was her who made him laugh, almost every day…

It was her gaining his attention, and dare she admit it, even if only in her mind, his affections.

Why was she losing? Why was her sister the victor? The one who said so many months ago, _'You can have him!'_

Why did he tell Hisana first when his father had a heart attack? Why where him and Hisana studying alone? Why where him and Hisana always finishing each other's sentences?

Why was she feeling so empty when _they_ were together?

Why was she feeling so alone when _she_ wore the title of _his_ girlfriend?

Why was she still trying?

'_Because,'_ she thought, _'Because I still want fairytales to exist, I still want the happy ending and the prince…'_ She stops mid thought to sniff and dry her tears before their group date…

'_Because… I still want to believe he's mine…'_

_-Ichigo—_

"Hey."

I bump into her shoulder roughly, expecting a reaction of her either snapping at me or bumping me back, but instead, all I get is the dishearten "Stop."

She says it so quietly, that I barely even hear it, and I stop in my tracks.

She continues walking, and for some reason, I just know she wants to be alone. She doesn't want me to try to cheer her up. Not today.

Some days, I can tell she wants me to try, to even make her smile when she really doesn't want to. She wants me to bug her and provoke her and make her remember to live again… _why_ she should live again.

But not today.

Today, she wants to sulk. Today, she wants to be alone and not be bothered. She doesn't exactly want to drown in self pity and misery, but to think about what's going on… whatever that might be.

Renji once told me a time when Rukia's smile actually light up her face. When it reached her eyes and she could laugh without being so damn guarded all the time.

Now, every emotion was planned out. Every smile and titter and laugh was done carefully. Only in sadness could she be herself.

And suddenly, she stops, turns her head to me, and lets me catch her words…

"He's going to marry her."

And than she's walking again. School's out, and our High School Graduation will be tonight, students are going home, yelping and whooping for the end of the school year, but all I feel is a breeze go through the center of my body.

I don't know much about _him_… but what I do know is that she hates him almost more than anything.

In fact, the only thing I know she hates more than _him_ is _her._

_-Rukia_—

The break up is clean. Simple.

"_I think we should see other people."_

And all she can think is 'Damn… he beat me to the punch…'

But she smiles. She smiles, nods, and agrees. _"Yes, we should, it will be for the best. You're graduating, I'm not."_

He lifts a corner of his mouth, the closest she's seen to a smile since her sister entered his life.

"_Good."_

And then, before he leaves her at the park on her lone swing, he does the classic break up kiss on her forehead.

But what she really feels is the burn of jealousy, the pain of losing, and the emptiness of a nightmare coming true.

She sits there way past his leaving in his car. Past the mosquito's nipping at her legs. Past the time the sun starts to set. Past the time the darkness of night touches her skin with the slight cold that has filled her insides.

Only then when she can barely see anything, she stands…

…And runs.

And ten minutes later, she's in her room, throwing every shred of color out of her closet. Grabbing the dark eye liner that she only used for Halloween and painting the soon-to-be infamous lines around her eyes. And out of all the pain she felt on the inside, some of it had to come on the outside.

She glances over her art box and see's the fresh, new pair of sewing scissors…

…She puts one of the metal blades to her wrists, takes a deep, gasping and shuttering breath, and brings the blade across the untouched flesh.

Hard.

_-Ichigo_-

"Rukia! Let me in!"

Hisana and her now fiancé are out, and it was just Rukia alone.

Hisana had opened the door before I could even rap my knuckles on it. The man I know Rukia hates is holding one of Hisana's hands, and she says Rukia's in her room before leading _him_ outside for a date and tells me to make sure Rukia's okay.

It's been a few hours after school, so I've changed. But for some reason, I felt like I need to check on Rukia. So I head up the stairs after shutting and locking the front door, and find Rukia's room locked, which leads me to knocking on it and yelling her name.

"Rukia! I know you're in there!" I'm yelling, taking turns knocking on her door and yelling at her through it.

"Rukia!"

And then I hear it, that sound, that unmistakable sound.

She's crying.

_Rukia doesn't cry._

"Rukia!" I'm yelling now, my mind buzzing with confusion and worry.

Rukia's never cried. Not during tear jerking movies. Not when she broke her arm. Not even when she didn't get the lead in the school play she deserved.

Never.

So the fact that she's now crying is scaring the shit out of me…

And so, without even thinking, I sort of break down her door.

It's easier than I imagine, maybe because I'm full of adrenaline for _knowing _something's wrong, but my shoulder rams into it and it shatters off the hinges.

And there she is. Wearing black shorts, and that's the first thing that catches my attention.

The shorts.

Rukia _only _wears pants. _Long_ pants. Skinny jeans, mostly, when out of school uniform… and even with school uniform she only wears black opaque tights and black biker shorts over those.

But now I'm seeing her legs, and lots of them… and only after I get over the fact I see her legs is the fact that I'm seeing them so… beat up.

Her eyes are dead, and a glint of metal flashes in her hands…

…And only now am I putting two and two together.

The razor, the currently bleeding legs, the purple scars and even older ones along the length of her legs… and the look of death in someone alive…

And before I know it, I'm rushed over to her; gently grab the razor from her hands before throwing it across the room and taking her in a hug.

I don't usually touch people. Me and Rukia have never been the type of friends that hug. But right now, I need to crush her to me. I need her to know I'm _here._ Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I need to know _she's_ here.

I'm surprised when she doesn't push me away, but actually clutches me back. Her sobs are muffled and only when my vision blurs I notice that I'm crying…

…And I probably cry as much as Rukia, which means not often, if at all.

And so we're standing, Rukia in her classic black tank top and shorts with her legs bleeding into my khaki shorts and my green top being stained with black tears.

I don't even care.

Because for now, I know she's here. I know she's with me. I know she's stopped whatever the hell she was doing, and for now, she's safe…

…In my arms…

…Almost like it's supposed to be that way...

…Almost like it's always has been.

_-Rukia-_

She found Hisana's journal, lying on her bed.

Rukia had a rule about journals. If it was left out in the open, you where asking for people to read it. If it was hidden and you found it, it was to be left alone.

But right now… the pink, sparkling book is calling to her, asking her to open it and look at the latest entry.

_Tuesday, 24__th__ of June, End of Senior Year_

_Dear Journal:_

_The day he kiss me, when he told me he loved me, I told him he had to end it with Rukia. We couldn't do this, not to my little sister. So he broke it off with her, and I feel bad about it, but now that we're together-_

The book slides from her hands.

It's official.

Not only had she lost, but her fairytale had ended.

The prince had gotten Cinderella, and Rukia was left to fill the role as the ugly step sister in her own fairytale.

She leaves the book, leaves her sister's room, and into hers.

The pink bedspread glares at her.

She was so much like her sister, and now she needed the difference.

If he had fallen in love with her, with her sister, it had to be because of their similarities, she must change that.

She had to become someone untouchable. Someone who was strong.

Someone who wasn't anything like _her._

So she rips up the comforter, replaces the white sheets with old black ones and curls into them.

And now she glances at her wrist, pulling the wrist band away from the recently scabbed wound.

She's surprised by how numb everything's become to her.

So she grabs the scissors off her dresser to inflict more pain when another small and petite hand grabs hers with the sharp blades…

"Don't." Hisana says simply.

"Go. To. Hell." Rukia replies icily and bluntly.

And so Hisana leaves, and Rukia now knows someone's replaced her in Hisana's life… the same person that used to be in her's…

But now she thinks about how stupid it would be to keep the wrist cutting thing… she would need to hide it better. Her shoulders? No, she liked tank tops too much. And so she think about which part she hates the most about herself…

And her legs scream at her. They're short, not long and model like. They're always covered anyway, because she didn't like them.

So she smiles, and puts the scissors to them instead.

…And she can again feel…

…Even if it's purely pain.

-_Ichigo_—

Without words, I pick her up in my arms, and she seems to just collapse into me… and for some reason, it just feels right.

Yeah, I wish the situation wasn't as terrible as it was, with her cut up and me carrying her to the bathroom to sit her on the counter to clean her up…

She robotically puts her feet in the sink and I turn on the water to warm it up.

She doesn't make eye contact with me… In fact, her hair hangs in her face and I can't even see her expression… would there be much of one anyway?

The water is heating up so I grab a towel from the rack in the small bathroom and clean her newly inflicted cuts. The warm water seeps into the bloodied injuries, and I'm thinking of all the times she's turned down swimming and short denim shorts and everything else that involves skin…

And I'm just thinking how stupid I am for not realizing something was wrong until now.

I hear her do some post crying breaths, deep breathing interrupted by shaken gasps, and now I realize my hands are quivering.

Her cuts are still bleeding, and I'm trying to count them all… deep purple scars all the way to chicken scratches…

…There are at least half a hundred…

I turn off the water, and take Rukia's face in my calloused hands and force her to look at me.

Her eyes aren't dead, but so full of pain I don't know what else to say but…

"Don't."

My voice trembles, her eyes tear up again, and then I'm bringing my lips to hers…

_-Rukia_—

"You two look so alike, more than Karin and Yuzu! You're like tw-"

"Don't." She roughly cuts Ichigo off, not wanting to hear how close they resembled each other.

Renji smiles at Ichigo, almost laughing.

"Moron, Rukia hates her sister!" The red head says knowingly.

It's one of the first times Ichigo has hung out with Renji and herself, they're at her house because they know _they_ won't be here today.

Ichigo looks confused, and then starts into some speech of how siblings couldn't hate each other.

"You're right." She says, cutting him off, Ichigo giving a sigh of relief of her understanding.

And Rukia looks back at the picture they were all staring at, back before the eyeliner and dark clothes and evils that happened.

"I loathe her."

Renji now gives an openly small chuckle, Ichigo visibly tenses and Rukia takes the picture off the wall and places it face down on the kitchen counter as the three teens now prepare themselves an after school snack.

-_Ichigo_—

I stop when I can feel her breath on my lips, and realize how wrong this might be, how she might not _want_ this kiss as much as I _need_ it…

But just as I start to slowly pull away, her arms wrap around my neck and I feel her warm lips on mine, salty tears mixing in with the taste of grief.

So the only thing I can do is hold her back, and kiss her, and let her know I'm here, I'm always going to be here… just as long as she won't push me away anymore like she's been doing every other day since I meet her in our sophomore year...

And when she pulls away from me, her forehead leaning against mine, feeling myself drained of energy from crying and kissing and the emotional rollercoaster we've both endured today, she speaks.

"I want to tell you a story…" She says in a whisper.

-_Rukia_—

Hisana always knew. Always knew what was going on with Rukia's little habit of dealing with her pain that only _she_ had brought her.

But she didn't care, she had _him_, and that's all that mattered to Hisana, was her boyfriend, now fiancé, now soon to be husband.

So she left Rukia alone. She didn't question why she never smiled, why she changed from baby blue and pink to black and why the eyeliner under her eyes resembled that of the eyes of a raccoon.

She didn't ask, because she knew.

So Hisana would ignore Rukia, and Rukia would do the same.

Days went where their only communication was eye contact, body language, and written notes such as, "Your turn for dishes", "Feed the cat", and the ever reminder of "I hate you."

Okay, so only Rukia wrote that one, which was eventually thrown away.

After all, what did she hate more? That he actually left her for her sister, that her sister actually loved the bastard, or the fact that she lost?

-_Ichigo—_

Rukia finishes the story.

We're now slumped in her bed, the top black sheet over us like a tent, protecting us from the outside world past the sheet as we lie down on her tiny twin mattress.

My shirt looks like it was attacked by an eyeliner pen, my pants bloodied up as Rukia's legs are now gauzed and covered in a pair of scrub pants, her form resting against mine…

She's curled up, hugging me tightly, her head on my chest, my arms around her…

The sun must be setting by now. Her story was long, and I listened with no interruptions.

She cried, and it really tore me apart. This was Rukia, the girl that was so strong, now broken and dead looking and bleeding…

So I just kiss the top of her forehead as her arms lose their grip around me and I know she's drifting into a sleep that I hope doesn't have nightmares in it… the ones where _he_ tells her how worthless she was, the day when she finally stood up to him and her and yelled at Hisana. How _he_ told her she would never be anything, and then told him to go cut herself again. The re-lived one where walked in on Renji's suicide in our junior year, him hanging from the rafters after his parent's divorce and after the drugs ruined him. The one's she was currently living of Hisana never standing up for her. The dreams where she was afraid I would leave her alone. The dreams where everyone dies and she watches.

And the dreams where I become _him_ and leave her for her sister too…

-_Rukia_—

When she wakes up, she feels his fingers twisting themselves in her hair, and turns her head to glance at him and he meets her gaze.

Why didn't she let him in sooner? Maybe he could've stopped some of the pain that she has had to carry herself for so many years.

Yes, fear was an aspect of it… She didn't want him leaving, she didn't want to be left alone again and feel that shitty feeling of abandonment...

But maybe because she was afraid of having the same situation replay it's self… but now, waking up with him next to her, it was nice…

He lifts a corner of his mouth, and she sees how tired he is, and she knows the feeling.

The sheet has fallen off of them, and the setting sun is dazzling the earth with the last few rays of light, the dimming light making his features strike out even more so to her. His one-too-many-times broken nose (one break was for her when some boy actually punched her), his thin lips that belonged on hers, and his amber eyes that always found their way into her violet ones.

So she cuddles back into him, and he rubs a hand on her back.

When she meets his eyes again, Ichigo has a determined look that makes her know something's about to happen.

And yet everything feels alright…

So she puts on a small grin through her tiredness and asks him,

"What's the plan?"

-_Him-_

Hisana's hand is in his, and he kisses her.

It always felt so amazing to be with her, almost as if she completed him…

And Hisana smiles and he squeezes her hand before opening the door to their house.

He had moved in shortly after their dating, and now that they were going to get married, it was going to be _their_ house.

"Rukia?" Hisana calls out, now searching for her sister, now frowning…

And that's when he notices it too…

…Things are misplaced… not just little things, but larger ones too…

Where they robbed?

So Hisana loses his grip as she goes upstairs, calling a bit more frantically, "Rukia?"

He follows, and Hisana see's Rukia's busted down door, and gasps.

He, however, see's the small post-it note…

_'To the future Mr. and Mrs:_

_I'm leaving. Enjoy your lives together._

_You really do deserve each other:_

_You're both __**so**__ heartless._

_-Rukia'_

He passes the small note to Hisana, who sees it and her emotions of worry are whipped blank, as he scans the room of the girl he once dated.

Drawers are opened and thrown on the floor, clothes are everywhere, and even a small picture of Rukia and Hisana has been thrown against the wall, the frame and glass broken, two young and happy faces left in the broken picture.

She's ran away, and Hisana now looks faint… Even though she and her sister hadn't been on good terms, she still loved her, even if Rukia had, and now it seemed to be, would never forgive her…

And now Byakuya looks at his hands, holding one of Hisana's, and wonders if he ruined everything.

For all of them.

* * *

Kind of sad for all of them, so yeah, here it is. Mainly Rukia centric, but that's just how it happened… I didn't want to make it any long because it's a ONESHOT, not five-chapters-crammed-into-a-oneshot.

P.S.: Review please, even if you hated it … I'll just blame the lack of sleep and insomnia… :)


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